


Missing Piece

by TheNarator



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Multi, Polyamory, Reincarnation, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 16:17:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5749870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNarator/pseuds/TheNarator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Khufu and Chay-ara have been locked in an endless cycle of death and rebirth for thousands of years. Maybe, just maybe, it's because there's something they've been missing. Or, rather, someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing Piece

Khufu will freely admit that there's a side of Chay-ara he doesn't see. There are parts of his Priestess he will never fully understand, and she doesn't expect him to, knowing him as she does. It's different for him; he's a warrior and so is she, in this they are the same and she can see all of him. But she has a connection to the gods, to the earth, to the _world_ , that he simply doesn't share. He is more of a soldier, but she is more _than_ a soldier; neither of them could be considered weaker than the other, but she is undoubtedly _more_. It's her power, a power far outside his own, that binds them together in their final moments, and he thinks perhaps another chance to protect her as she has protected both of them is the only way to prove himself worthy of her. Wonder that she is, she gives him that chance.

***

She gives him that chance, and another, and many more after that. Lifetimes come and go, lifetimes upon lifetimes, and in each of them he is strong enough --  _they_ are strong enough -- to survive only a short while. In the end though, their enemy invariably catches up to them. The man they knew as Hath-Set, who now calls himself Vandal Savage. Never, not once in a thousand, two thousand, three thousand years, is Khufu strong enough to stand against him.

Each time he has to watch Chay-ara die, he wonders if he'll ever be strong enough.

They do what good they can, with the time they have between Emerging and their inevitable deaths. As the ages pass the world gets no less dangerous, and Savage is always a threat, not only to them but to everyone. What lives they can save they protect. What evil they can face falls before them. She is a Priestess and he is a Prince, and their people might be long dead but they are what they are. They both became warriors for a reason.

They became lovers for a reason as well, and they don't forget that either. The lives they lead before their Emergence sometimes get in the way, but ultimately they always find their way back to each other. Nothing in a thousand, two thousand, three thousand years can keep them apart. They fit together like two halves of a broken stone; neither one can be complete without the other.

Even together though, even whole and complete in each other's arms, they aren't enough.

***

It doesn't occur to him that there might yet be something missing until nearly four thousand years have passed. In this lifetime he finds Chay-ara somewhat earlier than usual, but despite this she is already involved with another man. This isn't the first time she's taken a lover in his absence -- he can hardly blame her and ceased to even be jealous millennia ago -- but this is the first one who's been expecting him.

"Prince Khufu, I'm guessing?" he says, standing in the doorway with a knowing smile tugging at his lips. "You'd better come in, we have a lot to talk about."

He is an Oracle, this one. He's had the Sight since he was a child, and he'd known Chay-ara for who and what she was the moment they'd touched for the first time. It hadn't stopped him from touching again though -- "You'll forgive me," he says, eyes shining with warmth and laughter, "but she knows how to get her way, our Priestess, doesn't she?" -- and it doesn't stop the way his gaze slides appreciatively over Khufu.

He tells them he knows how to find Savage. They can hunt him, for once in this miserable game. They can surprise him, for the first time since this all began.

They do surprise him. They put him on the run, but only for a little while, and then it's them running once again. It's easier with Chay-ara's Oracle; by the power of his Sight they can always stay one step ahead. With this strange new freedom they begin again to do what good they can, and the Oracle helps. He doesn't fight, his power is entirely passive, but he does what he can to aid in their exploits. To protect the weak and the innocent. To take care of them, his Priestess and his Prince.

What Chay-ara and her Oracle share isn't something Khufu can properly understand. There's an incredible gentleness to both of them that he marvels at on some days, and yet a power thrums through both of them, like an earthquake beneath their skin. They feel a peace he can only imagine, yet neither of them are ignorant of war. They know things he couldn't hope to know, even having lived for thousands of years.

For someone who is, by necessity, entirely passive, there is certainly no lack of energy to the Oracle. He has none of the stoic tranquility Khufu has come to expect from Seers; instead he's vibrant and expressive and passionate. He speaks with his whole body. He laughs loudly and smiles easily. He loves Chay-ara deeply but bears no ill-will toward Khufu, and on days seems equally fond of both of them. He doesn't understand the warriors inside them any more than Khufu understands the spirituality he and Chay-ara share, and scoffs good-naturedly at what he calls Khufu's 'lust for violence.'

"Just because you're a Hawk doesn't mean you're an  _actual_ predator," he reminds Khufu, in a voice like sunlight playing off swift-flowing water.

"Spoken like prey, little Dove," Khufu replies. He will admit, to Chay-ara, that he adores their Oracle's sense of humor.

He isn't sure when he starts referring to the Oracle as _theirs_ , but once he realizes he has he doesn't particularly feel like going back. Which, he realizes, gives him very little room to be surprised when one of their arguments ends with him shoving _their_ Oracle against a wall and silencing his teasing tongue with a rough, bruising kiss.

His Oracle doesn't seem surprised either.

He falls into bed with them quite naturally. He already knows Chay-ara's body, and learns Khufu's quickly, studying him with all the diligence of a scholar. Khufu still remembers how to claim a lover, how to conquer the terrain of skin and sinew with soft lips and rough hands. Chay-ara teaches both of them what they don't know, how to bring a Prince to his knees, how to make a Seer's eyes fall closed in bliss. How to make a Hawk screech and a Dove croon.

He has nightmares, Khufu discovers not long after their first night together. They are echoes of his first vision, which saved his life then but haunts him now, reverberating over and over inside his head. Watching him gasp and shake, in fear instead of pleasure, makes Khufu want to kill something, but there is no enemy to be defeated and so he holds his Oracle close as Chay-ara does the same.

"Hush, my Dove," he whispers against soft hair, "you're safe. I swear it."

For the first time Khufu shudders at how vulnerable a creature he has come to love, at how easy it would be to lose this fragile little life. It would be simple, so simple, for Savage to take him, to extinguish his light. A light that Khufu and Chay-ara will never find again, once it goes dark.

It's a new experience, knowing that this lifetime will be their last with him. All the time the three of them have is between now and their deaths; an ordinary enough situation, but thinking as Khufu does in terms of centuries it seems unbearably short. To think that he and Chay-ara will have to continue without their Oracle, their Dove, their Missing Piece . . . it's too much. He puts it from his mind.

What time they have they make the most of. There is always fighting to be done, always evil to be defeated and innocents to protect, but there's time enough for _them_  as well. Time enough for sweet kisses and soft whispers, for rough handling and bruises like marks of possession, for high breathless sounds in the dead of night that make sleep the furthest thing from his mind. From any of their minds. Time passes, months become years and years become decades, much longer than they've ever survived past their Emergence. They fight Savage more than once in this life, face him again and again, surviving each time and claiming victory more often than not. They're still not strong enough to defeat him, to destroy him, but it's more hope than they've had in thousands of years, and they're grateful for it.

They know full well they owe everything to their Oracle, and they are certain, after each victory, to show their appreciation.

"What will happen?" he asks one evening, head pillowed on Chay-ara's thigh, Khufu's hand resting possessively on his neck. "If you defeat him, I mean. If you kill him. Will you die too?"

"I don't know," Chay-ara admits, looking up at her Prince. They've always been too focused on defeating Savage. They've never considered what happens next.

"Will you leave me?" he asks, taking Khufu's hand to kiss the palm with all the gentleness of a virgin. How can he seem so innocent, after everything they've done?

"All the gods and demons of this world could not wrest you from my arms," Khufu assures him, then moves his gaze upwards to meet Chay-ara's eye. "Either of you."

He's never particularly worried, their Oracle, when they leave him behind to go into battle. He has faith in his own power; he knows that if this is the day they are meant to die, he will See it, and he will stop it. Each time they leave their farewells are met with a knowing smile, a teasing quirk of his lips that simply _must_ be kissed away before they can proceed. It isn't farewell, for him. He knows exactly when he'll see them again.

Until, one day, he doesn't.

They aren't planning on going into battle against Savage. He takes them by surprise, there is no chance of escape and they are forced to fight or die. It soon becomes clear that they are tragically, _terminally_ , unprepared for this battle, and a familiar sense of hopelessness settles over both of them. They know this battle. They have fought it before. 205 times.

As his strength wanes Khufu begins to think sadly of their Oracle, waiting for them to come back to him. How long will he wait, if they do not return? What will he do, if they don't come home? Does Savage know enough, care enough, to go looking for him? Will he be safe without them?

Prince Khufu has suffered death a hundred times over and a hundred times again. He knows all too well the moment of realization, the space between heartbeats when it becomes clear that he has critically misjudged a distance, that his swing was too wide, that he left himself open too long. He feels that moment now, feels it in his blood and his bones, and he despairs more than he has in centuries because this time, _this_  time, he truly has something to lose. He wishes, in that moment, that he could see their Oracle, one last time.

He takes back his wish, fervently but far too late, when the Oracle appears in front of him.

Khufu hears Chay-ara screech in agony as he watches their Oracle, their Dove, their Missing Piece, go limp and crumple to the ground. She swoops in to catch him, kneeling in the dirt and cradling him in her arms.

"I'm sorry," he says, absurdly, looking up at Chay-ara with beseeching eyes. "I didn't . . . get a vision, until . . . until it was too late. I couldn't . . . warn you . . . in time."

"No, no sweet love," Chay-ara whispers, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "You are not to blame."

Khufu kneels beside them, on the other side of the limp form in Chay-ara's arms, and their Oracle turns his attention on him.

"Forgive me," he begs, eyes glassy with unshed tears, "I couldn't . . . protect you-"

"No," Khufu cuts him off, and for a moment he looks broken before his Prince continues. "There's nothing to forgive, little Dove. I'm the one who should be asking your forgiveness."

"If it's what you . . . need, you have it," he says, smiling his warm, gentle smile. There is nothing but peace in his eyes, even as they begin to grow dim.

"Stay with me, Dove!" Khufu orders desperately.

"Don't go yet!" Chay-ara demands, nearly sobbing.

But nothing either of them can say can heal his wounds, and no amount of pleading can delay the inevitable. Softly, peacefully, and with a beautiful, contented smile, their Oracle slips silently away.

Honestly Khufu can't remember if it's in that battle or the next that he and Chay-ara fall. Grief makes them angry, fierce and careless, and death is an almost welcome relief from the pain. He doesn't know when or where he'll see his Priestess again, but he knows exactly when they'll be reunited with their Oracle. Never.

***

In his next life Khufu -- Carter -- Emerges before Chay-ara finds him. As always it's a bittersweet experience, this time more bitter than ever. He'll find his Priestess again, already he can feel the pull of her presence drawing them together, but he knows that even when he finds her something will be missing. They will have no hope, this time, of victory. They will flee from Savage until they've regrouped, until both of them have fully Emerged, and then they will face him. They will fight and die because it is all they know, all they've ever known. All two Warhawks can do without a Dove to show them another way.

Carter's focus is on his Priestess when he swoops in to snatch her up. He tries to take her somewhere safe, somewhere he can provoke her Emergence in more controlled circumstances, but before he can get past the confusion of her most recent incarnation ( _Kendra_ , apparently) he's attacked. It . . . really isn't his fault, he reasons, that he goes down so easy. There are two of them. One can throw lightning.

He wakes up tied to a pillar, being interrogated by the two men who . . . _subdued_ him, and a number of others. In the typical fashion of people-who-aren't-Chay-ara, they don't understand. They're trying to protect her, so they're not enemies, but as long as he's their prisoner he and his Priestess are vulnerable to Savage. He has to escape. He has to find her.

Relief washes over him when he sees her, stepping cautiously into view amidst the collection of strangers. She watches him with a look of distrust, something he's grown used to over the centuries. Even with her attention focused on Carter though, she instinctively goes to stand beside one of them.

It's the Oracle.

Carter doesn't know how it's possible. _Khufu_ doesn't know how it's possible. It _isn't_ possible, and yet there he is, as vibrant and alive as the day they'd left him, unknowing that the next time they saw him would be the last. It's his reincarnation. Somehow.

Khufu doesn't know how to react to his presence. So, he doesn't. Carter only tells them about his relationship with Kendra because it's all he understands for certain; he doesn't know how to explain to these strangers that the Oracle who nearly helped them defeat Savage in their previous life and inexplicably followed them into this one is standing in their midst making sarcastic quips. Not without Chay-ara's help.

He does note, with some pleasure, that his Oracle is still as protective as ever. He's still witty, and brave, and entirely unimpressed with Carter's posturing. He's the _same_.

"You're 0 for 206 and you still think you're her best bet?" he challenges, and Carter looks away because this is the part where he'd silence that teasing mouth with a kiss, and Chay-ara would laugh and say he only knows how to talk with his body.

Their Oracle's name is Cisco, in this life, and he's Chay-ara's lover again. Carter persuades Kendra to let him help her Emerge, and he wonders vaguely if Cisco can Emerge as well, if he can remember his past life as they do theirs. He still seems to have his gift, as he mentions a vision he had of Kendra with wings. He doesn't remember, but he knows _something_ , and that's enough for Carter to let him drag the two men who captured him up onto the roof to watch him awaken his Priestess.

Cisco stands firmly between him and Kendra as he explains the method of Emergence, and doesn't seem entirely thrilled about it. Perhaps Carter is a little . . . impatient, with Kendra's hesitation to jump, but they're running out of time. He can't fathom why it doesn't work -- it's worked 205 times, there's no reason it _shouldn't_  work -- but the look of anger and outright hostility on his even-tempered little Dove's face hurts almost as much as the look of fear and distrust on Kendra's. He doesn't know what makes this lifetime different, but he needs Chay-ara to figure it out. He needs her back.

He needs both of them back.

He supposes he shouldn't be surprised to learn that Kendra needed the help of her Oracle to Emerge. He's always been able to speak to the spiritual side of her in a way Carter never could, and it's the power within her spirit that she needs now. She Emerges after ten minutes on the roof with Cisco, and Carter can't even bring himself to be annoyed. It's more obvious than ever now that Cisco is their missing piece. He's their Oracle, their Dove, the only one who stands a chance to help them break the cycle and defeat Vandal Savage.

Carter lets himself and Kendra be herded to a farmhouse outside the city, along with the rest of the small army of heroes Cisco has assembled for them. They'd tried this with an army before, mostly in their earlier lifetimes when armies were easier to come by, but it had never done them any good. Savage had always merely conjured an army of equal strength, either creating soldiers by magic or uniting an army of men under his command. This group feels different though, perhaps because it's Cisco who's gathered them, and Savage seems to think so too; by all appearances he is content to face them alone. Carter isn't sure how much good it will do, but it's something.

A handful of them, Cisco included, start working on a weapon to take the Staff of Horus from Savage. Building machines, and brilliant ones at that, is a new skill their Oracle has acquired, although Cisco has apparently had it longer than his Sight, judging by the way Felicity and Caitlin talk. Carter can't help but wonder what could have caused his Visions to stay dormant for so long, or what other skills Cisco has developed in order to compensate for their loss.

The one thing he can't do, in this life any more than their previous one, is fight. Much as Carter would like to take the opportunity to talk to both of them alone, he shoos his Dove away to work on their weapon while he works on training Kendra to use her powers. Cisco looks almost painfully uncertain when Carter waves him off, none of the warm understanding or unimpressed condescension that Khufu is used to in his eyes, and it's almost enough to make Carter tell him to do as he likes. There isn't time for that though, they both have work to do and almost no time to do it in, so he clamps that feeling down.

Honestly Khufu couldn't say how many times he's Emerged before Chay-ara, but really no more than the reverse. It's happened enough that he knows what he's doing though, and although it would be easier with more time -- all of this would be easier with more time -- he does his best to awaken the warrior he knows lies dormant within her.

Then, Cisco interrupts them.

"Yeah, that's nice," he says sarcastically, interrupting Carter's speech with a confidence born of sheer weariness so familiar it nearly makes Carter shiver, "I'm gonna talk to Kendra for a minute He-Man."

It doesn't stop this from being a little ridiculous though. Cisco is an Oracle, a Scholar, an Inventor; he is _not_  a warrior, and what Kendra needs now is to learn how to fight. Cisco's done well to awaken her, but this is Carter's domain and he's the one that must guide her through the rest of this. He's the one she needs.

Still, Cisco has brought them this far, so Carter gives him the benefit of the doubt. "Talk, man," he says, not quite able to hide his skepticism, but walks away none the less. "Thanks."

When Cisco comes storming into the house not long after, babbling about the gauntlets and how Oliver knew something he shouldn't be able to know, Carter wonders if their talk had been Kendra helping him to some kind of vision. For one glorious moment he thinks perhaps Cisco has also Emerged somehow, that he and Chay-ara understand everything and have pulled some amazing solution out of the air. Kendra walks toward him and it seems that she'll walk straight into his arms, that she'll kiss him and speak to him in their mother tongue, that once again their Oracle's vision has made everything _alright_.

As it turns out though, it was Kendra's vision. It will, however, make everything alright.

"I remembered," she says, and she's scared but she looks more determined than he's seen her in this life. "I remembered how Savage killed us the first time, back in Egypt."

"I've never been able to remember our first death," Carter tells her, with just a touch of wonder in his voice. He's caught between jealousy and pride, between bitterness that Cisco has helped her do something Carter could never manage and awe that the two of them have accomplished this at all. He feels hopeful, and helpless, and more determined than ever to take what they give him and use it to keep both of them safe.

Kendra's vision is the key to completing Cisco's gauntlets, and with a little help from Barry they finally have a weapon that stands a chance of defeating Vandal Savage. All that's left now is the battle, and this is what Carter, what Khufu, has been waiting for. It feels glorious to have Chay-ara fighting beside him again, and with so many other heroes surrounding them a strength fills him like he hasn't felt in centuries. Centuries upon centuries. Thousands of years.

The plan works, the seven of them fighting together as though this was always meant to be.

The gauntlets work, the gift from their Oracle shielding them as his power always has.

They turn Savage's weapon against him.

Savage falls.

Savage _falls_.

***

It's . . . odd, trying to figure out their next move. There is no more Vandal Savage to fight or to flee from, so where they should go now is rather uncertain. The rest of their lives stretch out before them like an endless sky, perhaps truly endless given that they have no idea how Savage's death will effect the curse of reincarnation. They might be the immortal ones now.

Chay-ara hasn't Emerged fully yet, so he decides to go somewhere they've been before, somewhere she's liked. They'll keep doing what they've always done, protecting the innocent and fighting evil in its non-immortal forms. With time this will help Kendra remember more, remember everything. Then she'll be able to help him understand Cisco.

He'd like to take Cisco with them, of course. Now that they have their missing piece, the thing they've lacked for four thousand years, he's reluctant to give that up. Kendra is too, even though she doesn't quite understand the scope of it; she just knows that she loves Cisco -- as Carter does, although she doesn't know that either. He has no idea how to explain it, not after how much of a stretch reincarnated-ancient-Egyptian-warrior-soulmates already is, and the fact that he doesn't know _how_  this has happened just makes it more implausible. As much as Carter would like to simply snatch him up and fly off with him, hole up somewhere until they figure this out, Cisco has a life in Central City, a life beyond Kendra and Carter. People depend on him, and now that Savage has been dealt with the needs of Hawkman and Hawkgirl are the least urgent of all the superheroes clamoring for his attention. He's a small part of a hundred stories, and theirs is all but over. Cisco's place is here.

They leave him -- it hurts, but they do it just the same. All they can do is throw themselves into the task at hand, into getting Chay-ara to Emerge as quickly as possible. They travel around, go places that she'd liked before. They practice with her wings until all her old skill at flying has returned, if not the full extent of the joy she once took in it. To begin with they deal mostly with small-time criminals, but they work their way slowly up to taking on entire gangs and the odd drug cartel. It's still fairly scaled-down from what they're used to, but it's work worth doing and it helps.

Kendra's memories return at a steady pace. While Carter tends to begin at the most recent previous lifetime and work his way back, Kendra starts at their first lifetime and moves continuously forward. Mainly she remembers her own experiences: her names, people she'd known, things she'd done before Emerging. Her memories that include Carter are mostly battles, how they fought and died at each other's sides. All too often she wakes up screaming as her dreams show her the memories of her own death, until Carter can hardly sleep, ears straining to hear her stirring through the walls so he can be there when she wakes up.

It would be easier if she would share his bed, even just for sleeping, but she's reluctant to rekindle their romantic relationship. She remembers curiously little of their love, although she recalls a few of her old love affairs that hadn't included him. It's as if something is holding her back, and Carter can hazard a guess as to what that might be. He waits, clamps down his impatience and tells himself that when she remembers Cisco this will all be resolved. They can work out what all this means together. Everything will be alright again.

He isn't quite expecting her reaction to the memories of Cisco's previous life to be taking a swing at him with her mace in the middle of their apartment, but he supposes it's as valid a response as any, all things considered.

"Calm down, my love," he says, as soothingly as he can manage when he's barely managing to dodge her swings.

"Calm down?!" Kendra screeches in disbelief, her wings out and knocking over lamps, electronics and furniture as she chases him around their cramped and cluttered living room. "You left our Dove behind! You made _me_  leave him behind!"

"He wasn't ours to take with us," Carter argues, finally realizing his luck at dodging her attacks won't last as long as her rage. He dives for the chest that contains his armor and weapons, and manages to block her next swing with his own mace. "He isn't ours to claim, he's-"

"The hell he isn't!" Kendra snarls. "He's been ours for going on 80 years now! The three of us need each other, how could you make me leave him alone and unprotected? After all the danger we put him in?"

"Vandal Savage is gone," Carter reminds her, dodging her swing and then countering, managing to drive her back a few steps, "and he has more demons to face than the one that's been following us. He has a whole company of heroes surrounding him; clearly he isn't _only_ ours."

"Then we should be there with him!" Kendra shrieks, lashing out wildly in frustration. "We should be _helping_  him, as he helped us! What kind of lovers, what kind of _people_  are we, to have used him to defeat Savage and then _left him_  the minute he wasn't useful anymore?"

This gives Carter pause, and it's enough for Kendra to get around his defenses and hit him square in the chest, knocking him backwards onto the sofa, bruised and winded.

"You needed to Emerge," he says weakly, once he has something of his breath back.

Kendra is breathing hard through her nose, glaring at him. "And now I have," she says, with all the power and authority of the Priestess Chay-ara he remembers. "Now, let's go help _him_  Emerge."

"Do you think it's possible?" Carter demands, because this is the closest he's come to an actual _answer_  since this all began.

"If it isn't," Kendra snaps, "we will _make_  it possible. Now, help me pack, we have a long flight ahead of us and I'm not staying here a minute longer than we have to."

When they get back to Central City, two days later and with a great deal of swearing and arguing, Carter half expects her to just swoop down and snatch Cisco up like he did with her. She lands though, outside STAR Labs where Cisco is preparing to go inside, following on the heels of a tall man with dark hair, who turns to watch interestedly as two winged humanoid creatures touch down in front of his companion.

"Kendra!" Cisco exclaims in surprise. "I thought you were off, like, fulfilling your destiny or something?"

"I was," said Kendra, throwing her arms around Cisco and pulling him close, "I did. I found what I was looking for."

"Which was?" Cisco squeaks, looking at Carter warily over Kendra's shoulder.

Kendra pulls away, then cups Cisco's face in her hands. "This," she says, and kisses him.

Cisco goes utterly relaxed under her touch, his eyes falling closed and his mouth falling open. He doesn't seem to breath the whole time she's kissing him, and when he pulls away it's with a startled gasp.

"You," he breaths, eyes glazed over as he looks at Kendra. Then he blinks, and his eyes slide into focus and widen considerably. "You!"

"Me," says Kendra, pressing her lips to his and smiling against his mouth.

Then Cisco pulls out of her grasp and swerves around her to stumble towards Carter. "And you!" he says indignantly, shoving Carter rather weakly in the chest before grasping the front of his shirt and pulling him close. "Why didn't you _say_  something?"

"I didn't know what to say," Carter admits without a hint of shame, unable to feel guilty when he's too busy wrapping one arm around Cisco's waist and working the other into his hair, tipping his head back to receive the kiss Carter's been saving for him since they met again in this life.

"Well not _nothing_ ," Cisco mumbles distractedly against his lips. "Anything would have been better than nothing. You could have said I was your _concubine_ and that would have been better than saying nothing."

"If he'd called you his concubine _I_ would have taken offense," Kendra laughs, pressing herself against Cisco from behind.

"I would never have done such a thing," Carter protests without heat, moving from Cisco's lips to Kendra's, and for the first time in this life she lets him kiss her, and kiss her, and kiss her.

"I hate to interrupt," said the man by the door, in a gruff, impatient voice, "but you do remember the part where we have work to do, right?"

Later, when Cisco's work with Team Flash is through, if only for the moment, the three of them go back to Cisco's apartment. At first they just talk; Cisco's visions only showed him enough to make him understand why he felt as he did, no more detail than necessary for that realization. Curious as ever, he wants to know everything about his past self, about his relationship with the two of them, about how much they know and how much he _might_  know with the help of more visions. Whatever triggered the return of Kendra's memories seems to have brought her a great deal at once, and she answers all of his questions in surprising detail, recalling things that had escaped even Khufu's fully awakened memory.

She's regained more memories than the ones of her Oracle though. In Kendra's eyes Carter can see Chay-ara in all her glory, and the way she looks at him has gone from distrustful and wary to playful and warm. She returns his kisses. She leans into his touch. She _remembers_.

"But I still don't understand how this happened," Carter tells them after some hours of this. None of them really want to lose contact with the other two, so out of necessity more than anything they've migrated to the bed, the three of them tangled up in each other as they lay sprawled out across the bedspread.

"What's there to understand?" Kendra asks, looking down to where his head is pillowed on her breast. "We needed him, so he came to us."

"How did I come to you though?" Cisco wants to know, his head resting on her belly while Carter plays with his hair. "How did I follow you? How did I get chosen for . . . _this_?" he asks, looking between the two of them in something like wonderment.

"At the time it was more like you chose us," Kendra explains mildly. "The way you explained it to me before, you sensed an . . . emptiness, inside me. Something missing. You felt the same emptiness inside Khufu, and so you tried to fill the void." She cards her hands lovingly through his hair, smiling like the summer sun. "You succeeded."

"It was like you were a part of us," Carter mused, still trying to piece together his thoughts. "It still is. It's like you were always meant to be with us."

"You were," Kendra confirms, in that strange way that she just _knows_  things. "This is how it was meant to be from the beginning. That was what you felt when you were drawn to us."

"You're sure?" Carter asks curiously.

Kendra shrugs. "It's the only thing that makes sense to me. Why, do you have a better explanation?"

"Then what the hell was I doing for four thousand years?" Cisco demands, looking horrified.

"Maybe you just hadn't been born where we could reach you," Kendra speculates, her tone untroubled and oddly soothingly. "The world's gotten smaller in the last few hundred years; before then traveling even a hundred miles was an impressive journey, and crossing the ocean an impossible dream. As for what you were doing, I'd guess it was probably the same thing you're doing here." Her hand cups Cisco's face, her thumb stroking over his lips. "You have a way of finding people doing things worth doing and giving them exactly what they need. Just like you gave us exactly what we needed."

"Guess I'm just the Eternal Sidekick," Cisco concludes, smiling wanly. "Sort of makes me wonder where I actually _belong_ , but-"

"Here," Carter cuts him off firmly, sliding his hand beneath Kendra's to grip Cisco's face and turn it towards his own. "You may be a . . . piece, of many other stories, but _this_  is the one where you belong."

"With us," Kendra continues, stroking Cisco's hair again. "Our home is wherever you are and yours is here between us." She looks from Carter to Cisco and back again. "The three of us need each other."

Cisco sits up, looking between the two of them in uncertainty and apprehension. "I don't know," he says nervously. "You guys are soulmates. Can you really have another person in the middle of that?"

"You think you're not our soulmate too?" Kendra laughs, silvery and full of light. "You followed us from our last life. Who knows how many lifetimes you spent searching for us? Whether this is something new or something that's been in the works from the beginning, you're a part of this now. You're a part of _us_."

"But I don't remember anything!" Cisco protests. "I can't remember my past lives like you two."

"You remembered something," Carter points out.

"Yeah, but that was just a vibe," Cisco frowns in thought, biting his lip prettily, and Carter wants to pull it from between his teeth and smooth the wrinkles in his brow. Then Carter realizes that he _can_  and so he does, gripping Cisco's chin and using his thumb to tug that abused lip free.

Cisco's eyes flutter but remain open, looking directly at Carter. Gently, giving him plenty of opportunity to pull away, Carter presses his thumb into Cisco's mouth. The sweet little Dove takes it obediently between his lips, and Carter knows his own eyes darken with desire when he sees Cisco's grow hazy in return.

Then Cisco pulls away, blinking rapidly and looking mortified. "Um," he squeaks, "I . . . wow. I don't know if I'm ready . . ." he trails off, glaring at the two of them because they're both grinning like maniacs. He must realize how much he sounds like one of them halfway through Emerging. "Ha ha," he says grumpily, "how funny. Doesn't change the fact that I've never remembered any past lives. I just had that one vibe, and it feels way too . . . distant? It's not like a memory, it's all fuzzy and it doesn't feel real."

"That's how it always is with us," Carter informs him, shrugging. "You remember more, and things get sharper and clearer as time goes on and more memories return."

"You've been telling me about my past life all night," Cisco counters. "Sorry, but I got nothing."

Kendra pushes Carter off and sits up, until she once again has a good inch on Cisco. He doesn't seem perturbed to be looking up at her, but then again Carter supposes Cisco is used to being the smallest person in the room. It doesn't mean he's weak, or unimportant. Besides, he already knows how much Kendra and Carter need him.

Carter sits up on his elbows as Kendra leans into Cisco and he leans back to accommodate her. "Well," she begins, cupping his neck with one hand and working the other into his hair, "there is one way to make you remember that we _know_  works."

"What's-" Cisco's question is cut off when Kendra kisses him, forcefully but tightly controlled. Carter watches as Cisco sighs against her mouth, stunned and limp for a moment before instinct takes over and he slips his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. The Kendra draws back, looking faintly smug as she takes in Cisco's drugged expression.

Cisco blinks a few times, then shakes his head. "Sorry, still nothing," he reports. "I think that was a one-time deal."

Carter, however, is having none of it. "I guess we'll have to keep trying then," he speculate mildly, then laughs when Cisco turns to him with a look of surprise. It's a little ridiculous, how shocked he is that they want him, but also a little sad. The only thing to do, then, is kiss the offending expression off his face until Cisco has one arm wound around Kendra and the other hand clutching at the front of Carter's shirt.

Cisco looks helplessly between the two of them, as though trying to choose which one he wants more and finding himself unable to make the decision. Carter and Kendra share a rather impish look over his shoulder, then Kendra is swooping in to claim his mouth again. While he's distracted Carter delicately lifts the hair from his neck, then rubs the tip of his nose teasingly along the space behind Cisco's ear. Cisco squeaks, and Carter presses his smile into the skin beneath his lips.

"Hush, little Dove," Carter says fondly, as his lips trace a path that was once so familiar down Cisco's neck toward his collarbone.

"Dove?" Cisco squawks indignantly, pulling away from Kendra's mouth, but that doesn't stop him tilting his head to give Carter better access to his neck. "Look, I know _I_  was the one to bring up the concubine thing earlier but that doesn't mean I'm _actually_ a girl-"

"I'm aware," Carter cuts him off dryly, and punctuates his interjection with a light nip to the junction between neck and shoulder that earns him a sharp intake of breath.

"You used to like that name," Kendra croons, and Carter can tell when she slides her hands beneath the hem of Cisco's shirt by the full-body shiver he can't suppress.

"That was when I read Tennyson for fun," Cisco protests.

All three of them freeze. Kendra and Carter look at each other, then back at Cisco in surprise.

"I . . ." Cisco stutters, "I don't know where that came from."

"Roughly forty years ago," Carter informs him, or rather _reminds_ him, and it's that a lovely thought.

"But I don't know where it . . . or why I . . ." he trails off, looking rather adorably distressed. Kendra must agree; she cradles his face in her hands and kisses him very lightly, like a question.

"The memory seemed to return to you when I put my mouth here," Carter brushes his fingertips over the bite mark, and Cisco shivers. Carter kisses the bruise again, very lightly. "Anything else?"

"No," Cisco replies, a little breathlessly.

"It seems to me," Kendra interrupts, "that your body remembers us more than your mind."

"We just need to bring them in sync with each other," Carter theorizes.

"That is a baseless conjecture," Cisco grumbles, but leans into Carter's touch just the same. "We have to collect a lot more data before we can draw that conclusion."

"Well then," Carter laughs, "I suppose we had best get started."


End file.
